Law & Politics
Social housing in Berlin
Rent subsidy for social housing: Berlin's new support from 2016
From January 2016, tenants in Berlin's social housing could apply for a rent subsidy when net cold rent exceeded 30 per cent of their household income. The rules at a glance.
Peter Guthmann
On 1 January 2016, Berlin introduced a new rent subsidy for tenants in social housing. The core rule: any household spending more than 30 per cent of its assessable gross income on net cold rent could apply for financial support from the state of Berlin.
The 30 per cent threshold followed the common rule of thumb that housing costs should not exceed roughly a third of net income. In many of Berlin's social housing units, that limit had long been surpassed.
Lower threshold for poorly insulated buildings
For tenants in buildings with poor energy efficiency, a lower threshold of 25 per cent applied. The reasoning: anyone living in a poorly insulated apartment pays not only rent but also above-average heating and hot water costs. The reduced threshold was meant to cushion this double burden.
Restriction for expiring subsidy programmes
For social housing units affected by the discontinuation of follow-on subsidies, there was a restriction: only households whose lease was signed before 1 January 2016 were eligible. This protected existing tenants from abrupt rent increases while excluding new tenants in units with expiring rent controls.
Background: since the end of the follow-on funding programme in 2003, many social housing units had gradually fallen out of rent regulation. The transitional rule was designed to cushion the impact for long-term tenants without creating incentives to move into such units.
Annual application required
The subsidy was approved for one year at a time. After that, a new application had to be submitted. This allowed the authorities to account for changes in income, rent level or living situation. The application form was available for download on the website of the Senate Department for Urban Development and the Environment.
Requirement: publicly funded housing
The basic prerequisite was living in a unit that had been built with public funding and was subject to occupancy and rent restrictions. Not every affordable apartment in Berlin qualified as social housing in the legal sense.
Why the reform was introduced
The new subsidy responded to a paradox: in some cases, rents in Berlin's social housing actually exceeded rents on the open market. The subsidy aimed to ensure that publicly funded housing genuinely provided relief for low-income households. For owners of social housing units, little changed. Rents stayed the same; only the financing shifted partly from the tenant household to the state of Berlin.